So the way the weather was last month, I decided it would be better to do something more productive than dream of snorkeling and wearing flip flops. I went out and purchased a brand new new-generation pair of cross country skis. The second pair in my life.

With my first pair of skis, from 1982, the "boots" were made of canvas and looked like cheap sneakers. My feet froze in the first five minutes. And the bindings only worked sometimes. I still remember one freezing January night in Wappingers Falls trying to get out of them for almost an hour. I finally took my foot out of the ski "boot" and walked through the snow and up three flights of stairs in my socks.

My new skis have real boots. They are bright silver, padded with something amazing, and incredibly warm. And the bindings always work.

These advances in technology reminded me of today's new IBM System x server announcement. The new Intel Xeon 5600-based systems deliver performance, energy efficiency, and increased consolidation opportunities. Outstanding performance can be seen across a wide portfolio of industry standard benchmarks including SPECjbb2005, SPECpower_ssj2008 and SPEC CPU2006. In fact, today IBM posted the first SPECpower benchmark score of more than 3,000 overall
ssj_ops/watt.(1)

These new systems enable users to recoup acquisition costs in a very short amount of time. I figure that with all the snow we've had this year and all the skiing I've subsequently been doing, I've certainly done the same.

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(1) IBM System x iDataPlex™ dx360 M3 server Performance to Power Ratio of 3,038 overall ssj_ops/watt on the
SPECpower_ssj2008 benchmark (dx360 M3 was configured with the Intel® Xeon® Processor X5670 (2.93GHz with 256KB L2 cache
per core and 12MB L3 cache per processor—2 chips/12 cores/6 cores per chip), 12GB of memory, one
50GB solid state drive, and IBM J9 Java 6 (using a 1500MB heap), and Microsoft® Windows® Server
2008 R2 Datacenter Edition. Result current as of March 16, 2010, and has been submitted to SPEC® for review. Upon
successful review, the result will be posted at www.spec.org. View all published results at
www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results/power_ssj2008.html.